Living with a Monster: A Small Rant on Body Hate.

“I’ve cried, and you’d think I’d be better for it, but the sadness just sleeps, and it stays in my spine the rest of my life.” – Conor Oberst

I had always imagined that the moment I turned 20 I would cut the red tape of a new mentality and embrace my new slate. That the six flags bloke would be dancing as someone threw confetti on me and screamed; congrats, now you really get to start being an adult.

(Okay, maybe not so literally.)

But honestly, I always had believed once you hit a certain age it would just happen. I would become the woman I saw in magazines and social media, that I wouldn’t only look like a grown woman but I would actually have a cured mentality like some blessing.

Unfortunately, 20 has come and gone seemingly too soon, (wait, didn’t I just leave elementary school?). Anyways, even more devastating is as I sat there waiting, nothing happened, there was no magic pixie dust that transformed me.

I was still me.

And I cried.

And I didn’t stop crying for a long time.

To live with a constant state of body hate mentality is to live with a snarling monster who bullies you constantly.

Every mirror you pass.

Every plate you look into.

Every digit that appears on a scale.

This isn’t just social media though or societal pressure, even though those clearly exist. This began much longer before I understood that I was expected by society to fit into a certain spectrum.

For as long as I can remember to today I have hated my body. I have been a size 0 and a size 16. I have cried and starved myself, filling my stomach with cigarette smoke and little else. I have also binged and been unable to seemingly control myself, eating my feelings to only later bawl in self hatred.

Not pity.

Hatred.

To live with this monster is a struggle I can’t describe in clear, simple statements.

It is strange, to hate oneself’s body. I shroud myself in body positive platforms and actively support the beauty standard changing movements yet I cannot best the mental baggage I carry.

It is quite the thing, to be unable to touch your own skin without tearing up.

This post hardly could be considered helpful, it’s basically just a rant.

I’ve been so goddamned miserable lately and sometimes?

It helps to just be goddamn miserable.

Guess what, you’re human. We get sad and angry and bitter and happy and hopelessly amazing, and it’s okay.

Sometimes we need to remember that it’s perfectly healthy to be sad or disappointed, you deserve a chance to cry over whatever you want to.

Fuck these people on social media who say there’s no excuse for weakness, to be human is to be weakness and to persevere.